Sarah Bakewell

Sarah Bakewell (born 1963) is a British author and former rare books curator, best known for her acclaimed nonfiction works blending biography, philosophy, and cultural history, including the National Book Critics Circle Award-winning How to Live: A Life of Montaigne (2010), At the Existentialist Café (2016), and Humanly Possible (2023). Born in Bournemouth, England, she spent part of her childhood traveling through Asia and living in Australia before studying philosophy at the University of Essex and working at London's Wellcome Library, which inspired her debut book The Smart (2001). She has received the Windham-Campbell Prize for Nonfiction (2018) and teaches creative writing at Oxford.